Aiport Extreme + WD 1TB Mybook Pro = S_L_O_W

Firstly yeah, I'm kicking myself for purchasing an Airport Extreme so close to macworld but how was I to even fathom that they would make something like the time capsule?

... anyway ...

I bought the APE about a month and a half ago and ordered a 1TB MyBook Pro last week, received it last night. Hooked it up, set up permissions, and started the transfer of files. I am extremely disappointed - it is extremely slow! We're talking 2.5% network utilization or 25Mbps (~3MB/sec). I have it connected through a powered USB 2.0 compatible hub along with a 120GB drive I use for time machine backups. I expected much better performance. Has anyone had any similar results?

I kept the file system as it came (which is HFS+) and it shows up just fine in finder.

I don't know if it's worth mentioning but I was getting this performance from a wired windows xp machine (i.e. not through wireless though I wouldn't expect that to make a difference).

I'm close to returning the drive, selling the APE, and getting a Time Capsule.

This is the drive:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=270

I almost bought that WD drive myself until I read a lot of reviews that stated the same thing you are saying. If you can return it I would. I didn't find anyone who had too many nice things to say about it.

jneusch said:

I almost bought that WD drive myself until I read a lot of reviews that stated the same thing you are saying. If you can return it I would. I didn't find anyone who had too many nice things to say about it.

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I did a fair amount of research as I normally do and the only negative thing I found was that the internal fan was loud. I didn't care too much about that since I have a home "hub" area where all my IT equipment is and then it's distributed throughout the house so the noise was inconsequential.

I can return it, it's just annoying. I figured there might be a fix available that I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the feedback.

I was under the vague impression that the slow transferrates are true to all discs through APE. Or are there discs that are faster (aka, not 3mb/s)?

Autonom said:

I was under the vague impression that the slow transferrates are true to all discs through APE. Or are there discs that are faster (aka, not 3mb/s)?

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You might be right about this. I've never heard it though. I figured since the port was usb 2.0 I could get usb 2.0 speeds.

avatarr said:

I did a fair amount of research as I normally do and the only negative thing I found was that the internal fan was loud. I didn't care too much about that since I have a home "hub" area where all my IT equipment is and then it's distributed throughout the house so the noise was inconsequential.

I can return it, it's just annoying. I figured there might be a fix available that I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the feedback.

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I have the same drive, and after upgrading the firmware, I turned the fan over (i.e. changed the direction of the fan), and it is very quiet now.

TheChemist said:

I have the same drive, and after upgrading the firmware, I turned the fan over (i.e. changed the direction of the fan), and it is very quiet now.

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rereading my post I can see how you thought I meant the sound was annoying but I really meant that the slow speed was annoying. I was saying that the sound really didn't matter to me so I bought it only to find that it works slow as **** through usb with the AEBS.

So you are running a PC for a system connected to the AEBS?

Have you tried the drive plugged directly into a USB 2.0 port on the computer? Does the transfer rate still seem slow? USB 2.0 is not as fast with large file transfers as some people seem to think it is. Try that and if it's still that slow it's the USB. No USB 2.0 drive here seems fast to me writing files to it.

Glad I read your entire post as at first I figured you were connected to the AE Wireless and that will make a Large difference in File Transfer speed, even N is not as fast as a direct 100 or 1000BT connection to the router. I just the other night connected to my network at 54G and trying to copy some movie files I needed to edit for a friend was going to take over an hour! I plugged in the CAT-5 cable and things took off. I never use Wireless to transfer large files over my network. Too slow.

I have several PCs wired through Gigabit (windows based) as well as a MBP connected through 802.11n. None of them perform all that well.

Additionally, I did try transferring directly to the drive and it took about 4 and a half minutes to transfer 1.4 GB. I'm not impressed.

I'm probably going to return it and talk to apple for a poorly performing setup and try to get them to give me credit towards a 1 TB Time Capsule.

That really sounds like what I get here with USB 2.0 and either PC's or Macs. I would say try a Firewire drive but your PC's might not have a Firewire port and the AE and all routers I have seen that allow for an external HDD are USB 2.0.

I have both a Seagate and WD external's with both USB 2.0 and FW-400 and will never use USB. Way too slow for what I need.

Edit: I just copied a 1.59GB Movie ISO image to the Firewire 400 external and it took maybe 40 seconds.